God’s Gracious Love Can Be Found in the Midst of Hardships

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2188

    If the son advises and teaches his parents to love their country so that they become patriots, and makes them a mother and father whom heaven remembers, is he a filial or unfilial son?
    So, rather than a son who says to his parents, “Mom, Dad, don’t go out! Just rest at home.” he should say, “Mom, Dad, what are you doing? Please, let’s try together to find even one more per-son who can be a patriot, who can work for the unification of North and South Korea, who can work to save North Korea.” Then he makes them shed tears, blood and sweat. Then what would you think if the people in the neighborhood were to praise this achievement?
    Would the parents say, “You scoundrel, you really made your mother and father’s life difficult, so at first we thought you were a bad boy. Yet we became successful and are praised by everyone. My! You really are a filial son.” Do you think the parents would say this, or would they say, “You are an unfilial son”? What do you think? (209-266, 1990.11.30)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1594

Because everything which arose from the false parents comes under the number nine, the numbers one to nine are loathed by Heaven. You persevered in providential history to clear up Satan’s number, the number nine, through the practice of tithing, in the Old Testament Age.

The Refining Fire

God’s gracious love can be found in the midst of hardships and suffering. The person whose mind is fixed on God takes life’s trials and challenges as a means to purify his or her faith, correct flaws and refine character. could it be that such trials are not accidental, but actually expressions of God’s love to discipline and educate his children? (see also chapter 15: Testing.)
Moreover, God’s word presents us with the challenge to live by it. scripture therefore likens the word of God to a fire, which burns away everything that is false. Father Moon explains that the judgment that many Christians fear is actually an opportunity to purify ourselves in the truth and reach the point where we are one hundred percent united with the word of Christ. thus, the purpose of judgment is to save, not to condemn.

  1. Judgment by Fire

I will put this third into the fire,and refine them as one refines silver,and test them as gold is tested.
    Zechariah 13.9

Just as a great conflagration
Can burn up all things,
So does Buddha’s field of blessings
Burn up all fabrication.
    Garland Sutra 10 (Buddhism)

As the heat of a fire reduces wood to ashes, the fire of knowledge burns to ashes all karma. Nothing in this world purifies like spiritual wisdom.
    Bhagavad-Gita 4.37 (Hinduism)

Just as a fire quickly reduces decayed wood to ashes, so does an aspirant who is totally absorbed in the inner self and completely unattached to all external objects shake to the roots, attenuate, and wither away his karma-body.
    Samantabadhra, Aptamimamsa 24-27 (Jainism)

Make chastity your furnace, patience your smithy,
The Master’s word your anvil, and true knowledge your hammer.
Make awe of God your bellows, and with it kindle the fire of austerity.
And in the crucible of love, melt the nectar Divine.
Only in such a mint, can man be cast into the Word.
    Adi Granth, Japuji 38, M.1, p. 8 (Sikhism)

“From His right hand went forth a fiery law for them” (Deuteronomy 33.2). The words of Torah are compared to fire, for both were given from heaven, both are eternal. If a man draws near the fire, he derives benefit; if he keeps afar, he is frozen, so with the words of the Torah: if a man toils in them, they are life to him; if he separates from him, they kill him.
    Sifre Deuteronomy (Judaism)

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
    1 Corinthians 3.11-15

Is not my word like fire, says the lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?
    Jeremiah 23.29

With fire we test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.
    Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Arabic 54 (Baha’i Faith)

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